How-To Unleash Your iPad

Want to learn how to text, make phone calls, and watch movies on your iPad? Mac|Life’s experts walk you through all the handy tips and useful tricks that Apple should have told you about--but didn’t.

Apple is really great at creating highly functional devices that are simple to use. They’re also notorious for furthering that image by going light on useful extras…like owner’s manuals. After all, if it’s so easy, who needs instructions?

By now, anyone familiar with the iPhone OS is probably pretty comfortable with the basics--installing apps, browsing the web, sending emails, and the like. But in order to get the most out of your iPad, you’ll need to bone up on some other subjects that Apple isn’t going to broach, like ripping your own DVDs, swapping out your AT&T SIM card, or building your own ePubs to read with iBooks. We even have the details on how to keep your data safe and how to add functionality that the iPad lacks, like a camera, texting, and making phone calls. It’s all easy to do if you know how. And now you will.

Turn Your iPad into a Big iPhone!

The iPad may look like an iPhone that’s been flattened by a steamroller, but it’s not actually a phone at all. That said, there’s no reason why you can’t turn it into a phone with apps for Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) calls, text messaging, and capturing photos--it’s way simpler than you might think.

Phone Calls

Let’s start with the basics: phoning a friend. VoIP calls work the same as a regular phone call--simply dial a number and speak. Behind the scenes, things are a little more complex, but from the users’ perspective, there’s not much difference--other than the fact that your calls are traveling via the internet, rather than phone lines.

A free app called Truphone gives you free calls to other Truphone and Google Talk users, and cheap calls to any phone anywhere. To start making voice calls with your iPad, all you need to do is download the app, create an account, and tap out a number on Truphone’s virtual telephone, which takes only a few minutes.

Fortunately, the iPad’s built-in speakers and mic mean you can use the iPad as a phone without a headset. Happily, Apple’s stock iPhone headset works just fine too, as do third-party iPhone headsets. And if you own the iPad Camera Kit, you can also plug in many standard USB headsets.

Calling a Truphone contact is simple--just tap on their username, and the call connects. Or use the keypad for dialing numbers.

If you’re making a paid call, Truphone gives you a little bit of credit to get going, so just dial a number and tap Call. To add a Truphone contact, simply tap the + symbol and then Add Truphone Contacts. Type in a name, and where it asks for a phone number, type their Truphone username. You can also scan your existing Contacts and call them using Truphone.

Once you’ve exhausted your free credit, tap Top Up to go to the Truphone website to add credit with a voucher, PayPal, or a credit card. Thankfully, there are no monthly commitments--take that, iPhone! Frequent callers can sign up for a variety of calling plans, but the standard version is contract-free and offers calls within the US for 5.1 cents per minute.

Truphone definitely isn’t a perfect replacement for your iPhone--until iPhone OS 4.0 hits iPads in the fall, there’s no such thing as multitasking, which means you can’t make or receive Truphone calls unless the app is running. But still, this solution is great for occasional phone calls or for people who frequently pay costly international calling rates.

IM & Texting

The explosion in social networking means there are loads more ways to keep in touch. Twitter, Facebook, AIM, and SMS are all great ways of chatting with friends and colleagues, of course, and the iPad has some fantastic tools that allow you to use all of these networks. You could use a dedicated app like AIM for iPad (free), but then you’re limited to a specific network. A better option is IM+ ($9.99), which connects to Skype, AOL, MSN, Twitter, Facebook, Yahoo!, Google Talk, Jabber, ICQ, and MySpace--all in one handy interface. Tap on +, and a list of services will appear. Select a service, enter your username and password, and you’ll be IMing in seconds. And if your friends are more into texting, you can use your AIM/iChat account to send text messages to phones by sending a message to your friend’s telephone number.

You can keep tabs on all your friends and colleagues with IM+ no matter what social network they choose.

There are also dedicated texting apps in the App Store. textPlus (free, or $2.99 without ads) lets you send free messages between textPlus users. You can also send free texts to mobile phones--but standard messaging rates will apply to the recipients.

Photography

The iPad conspicuously lacks a camera, but don’t let that stop you from using it to take pictures. A new wave of apps lets you use your iPhone in conjunction with your iPad to capture images on the go.

Camera for iPad ($0.99) lets you snap images from your iPhone over Bluetooth or Wi-Fi connections, displaying the phone’s camera feed live on your iPad. It also has a handy email setting that allows you to shoot and send pictures almost instantaneously.

Camera-A ($0.99) works in conjunction with Camera-B (free) running on your iPhone--they’re much like Camera for iPad, but have a few extras like a rudimentary zoom function and the option to save shots to both devices or just the iPad. It sounds complicated, but this dual-app setup is easy to master.

With the Camera-A and Camera-B apps you can preview the iPhone camera with your iPad over Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

Just open Camera-A and Camera-B on both devices and wait for them to connect. Tap the camera icon on the iPad screen to take a shot. The image will take a moment to transfer from your iPhone, and then you’ll get a message asking if you want to save the photo.

For a finer level control, you’ll find zooming at the bottom left of the iPad screen. Use your finger to zoom in to or out of your image to get closer to the action. For a bit of fun, you can tap on one of the six musical note icons to make the iPhone play a sound, which will catch the attention of unsuspecting photographic subjects. Then snap off a quick frame for the ultimate in candid shots.Next page: Make Your Own EPubs >>